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Elminster
Speaks - Part 47

By Ed Greenwood

Doings in Delzimmer, Part 6

My last look at Delzimmer -- for now -- will conclude with a summation of the
current rumors in the city concerning the citizen Antholo Kraul. Hitherto ignored
by most Delzmaer and all the rest of Faerûn, he's shot to prominence very
recently for an unexpected reason.

Kraul is a short, stout, balding and rather nondescript man (a CN male human
Rog2, I believe) who sells maps and charts from his shop front, Antholo's
All the Realms, on Riuntle Street. Said wares are plain, clear, and fairly
accurate -- if unlovely and greatly lacking in detail -- copies of the trade
charts used in Tharsult and the Tashalar and the cities of Calimshan (which
are themselves usually updated copies of more famous and authoritative originals
kept at Candlekeep and divers other monasteries and royal libraries). In short,
Kraul's maps would never be snapped up as wall-decorations for a grand house,
but sell steadily for practical use at prices ranging from 25 to 200 gp, depending
on size, subject, and date of survey.

This state of affairs makes Kraul a useful member of the Delzmaer mercantile
scene, but no man of influence or public importance. What has brought him
rapt recent attention is his death -- or rather, his deaths.

Some months back, Kraul was messily and bloodily killed in Paroind Street
when one of the notorious building collapses occurred -- and most of the west
front of a three-story, balconied house fell on him and several other passersby.
His body was crushed, but not his head, and some acquaintances he'd been walking
and talking with survived the tragedy, so there was no doubt of his identity
or his passing.

Such is the daily work of deities -- but what they or some fell mortal magic
do far less often was what followed: Kraul was burned on a temple pyre in
the usual Delzmaer manner -- only to reappear, hale and whole, at his shop
some days later. This caused a stir (especially among three lady cousins,
who'd arrived at his shop and home to squabble over the division of his goods),
but most folk assumed some mistake had been made in Paroind Street and Kraul
had been elsewhere on business, perhaps buying maps from temporary halfling
encampments south of Delzimmer (a notorious source of shady wares).

Business resumed at Antholo's All the Realms, and continued in the normal
manner for a tenday -- whereupon Kraul was slain a second time by knife-wielding
thieves rushing down Lhavarild Street to escape from a robbery gone bad at
Istryn's Silks. His cousins identified him before a kala this time -- but
despite another pyre and a nagra sent to witness his bones blackening on it,
Antholo Kraul reappeared at his shop three days later. He was slain that same
night, at the hands of Srandro Chree, a killer-for-coins (presumed to have
been hired by one of Kraul's cousins), but was seen again the next evening
drinking at the Reaching Hand tavern.

His drinking companions there were the usual small circle of Riuntle Street
merchants of middling fortunes who -- though they'd all heard of Kraul's deaths
by then, and were both curious and alert for an impostor -- all agree that
they spoke to the man himself, and that he seemed quieter than usual, a little
sad, and dismissive of queries concerning his passings.

Thereafter closely watched by the nagra under orders from three puzzled kala
(who even hired a traveling wizard to make sure that the Antholo Kraul they
were now looking at wasn't something else wearing Kraul's shape), the merchant
survived being nearly run over by a racing cart (the nagra have their suspicions
as to the cousins' involvement with its driver, but can prove nothing) and
being felled by a drunken outlander in a tavern brawl -- but died again seven
days later when a large urn of slael-fall flowers toppled "accidentally"
from his own balcony when he returned home. A watching nagra arrested a cousin
seen leaving the balcony, and confirmed Kraul's death. Kala ordered the body
brought to a nagra house rather than to a temple pyre. It rotted for some
days, but then -- in the presence of several nagra -- Kraul's remains simply
faded away. Neighbors report that the bloodstain before his doors slowly vanished
at about the same time -- and some four days later, Antholo Kraul was seen
again walking up the street in the morning to open his shop, as he always
does.

Thus far, nagra have failed to get any clear answers from the man as to what's
going on, and the kala are said to be hotly debating how far their powers
run. Some among them say they should be seeking to hire an archmage to determine
if Delzimmer stands endangered by whatever is bringing Kraul repeatedly back
to life.

Many Delzmaer are more afraid of the inevitable group of Red Wizards and
other beings of power who will probably soon descend on Delzimmer to try to
seize the raising magic that rides Antholo Kraul and take it for their own.
Who knows who they'll slay -- or magically transform and enslave, as crawling
worms or worse -- in the process?